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Wow, what a movie experience! “Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior) ” is my accepted film from relate Akira Kurosawa, which is saying one heck of a lot when one considers “Rashomon”, “Seven Samurai”, and “Ran”. I sat riveted to the television veil during the entire presentation. It is a legend of a petty thief who, because he looks very considerable like the grand Warlord Shingen, is given the chance to redeem himself and play the gargantuan Warlord’s double. The heart of the film is the inner change and novel found strength that progresses through the thief as he learns to become the Warlord. Awesome in its imagery, “Kagemusha” will mesmerize you and disappear you. Between 1 and 10, this grand Kurosawa classic gets a 10. With his passing, along with Stanley Kubrick, the world has lost two astronomical treasures.
KAGEMUSHA is the large 1980 drama provocative a clan of 16th-Century Japanese warlords who want to deceive their enemies by having a well-liked thief impersonate their murdered leader. This is a thought-provoking film about reality and illusion, as well as a visually spirited work filled with many striking scenes and compositions that Kurosawa films are known for. A memorable 6-minute opening shot of three identical-looking men, an justify dream sequence, and a harrowing montage of the aftermath of the final battle are among some of Kurosawa’s finest moments in his long film career. Lead actor Tatsuya Nakadai was only in his 40s when he made KAGEMUSHA, playing a considerable older man and effectively conveying the guile and conflicted feelings of the imposter. Nakadai would also play the lead role in Kurosawa’s next film, RAN, 5 years later, again unrecognizably playing a great older man.
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Criterion has released the definitive video edition for KAGEMUSHA: a Region-1, 2-disc DVD of the uncut, 180-minute version of film. The anamorphic widescreen video quality is generally very splendid, except for some occasional graininess. The modern Japanese audio is in Dolby Digital 4.0 surround (3 front, and 1 mono rear channels), although surround effects are infrequently traditional.
The best supplement on the disc is Stephen Prince’s full-length audio commentary, which, due to the film’s length, is able to clarify on many topics in substantial details. Grand of Prince’s narration (I would say half of it) is more on the historical background of the film’s period than the filmmaking and art of the film. He compares clear position details against historical facts to explain how Kurosawa uses his artistic license to hiss his beget ideas. Regarding the film itself, he emphasizes that this is an atypical Kurosawa film in that its hero tries to conform to the prevailing social order, unlike the nonconformist rebels and outcasts in past films such as SEVEN SAMURAI or YOJIMBO. On the film’s artistry, he observantly points out that in a film about illusions, many of the key events in the area are aptly NOT shown on conceal. He also provides a gargantuan analysis on Kurosawa’s most clarify dream sequence.
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Prince also does a qualified job of pointing out the differences between the shortened, 162-min international version and this 180-min uncut version. The longer version does not have “20 minutes of footage appealing Kenshin Uesugi”, as misreported at IMDB. The added scenes are, in fact, merely short, trimmed scenes and shots that are sprinkled all over the film. They add to the overall continuity, without altering anything in the main situation line. A majority of the added scenes are unbiased too trivial to mention or to even gaze. The few mighty ones include a great longer montage of the aftermath of the final battle, and a wholly added scene where the erroneous Shingen is being examined by the Jesuit priest physician — this scene also has the gigantic Takashi Shimura’s only appearance in the film, seen for the first time on this DVD by viewers outside of Japan.
For Kurosawa fans, the second best feature on the disc is perhaps the collection of impressionistic paintings by Kurosawa that were later obsolete by him as storyboards for the film. In a 41-minute segment called “Image: Kurosawa’s Continuity”, hundreds of such paintings are shown, accompanied by sound clips from the films. In a level-headed gallery fragment called “A Vision Realized”, there are about 20 of the paintings placed side by side with peaceful photos from the film. Many of these same paintings are also reprinted on the 45-page booklet that comes with this DVD.
The booklet also include 3 extraordinary essays. As is usually the case, Criterion took the anxiety of including different writings that don’t duplicate one another. One essay deals with the film itself, its art and its history. Another one is a Sight-and-Sound interview with Kurosawa. The third one covers Kurosawa himself biographically.
The disc also comes with a well-made 41-minute making-of documentary that is comprised of mostly interviews, stills, and clips from KAGEMUSHA. It’s share of a 2003 series called “Akira Kurosawa: It is Astonishing to Perform” (other episodes of this series are available on Criterion DVDs of IKIRU, THE LOWER DEPTHS, and STRAY DOG) . In Japanese with optional English subtitles, it has interview segments of the cast and crew, including Kurosawa, Nakadai, Kota Yui (the child actor, who is now grown up), and others. They record the challenges they faced, the artistic and technical choices they made, and a few laughable anecdotes.
Also included are trailers, a few whiskey commercials Kurosawa made on the state of KAGEMUSHA (other than the monetary reasons for which they were made, there is nothing special about these commercials), and a 20-minute interview segment with George Lucas and Francis Coppola, who praise Kurosawa’s genius and lament that the film business often doesn’t accommodate non-commercial films, even those by mammoth directors.
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